New-York tribune. [volume], July 03, 1910, Image 34

About New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
THE OLD PROPROOM
By Charles Bloomingdale, Jr. (Karl)
HATS off /gentlemen! Age, i" the
person of the Past- quavers
"Good morrow" to you; the
old, musty, dusty proproom of the
Walnut Street Theater in Phuadelphia
bids you come in from the garish glare
of to-day and sink in its shadows of
bygone yesterdays, bids you see and
touch the things that Forrest. Booth
Macreadv, Kean, Charlotte Lush
man, Dion Boucicault. and other
giants of the stage saw and touched—
yes and used in those dear, dead
• lays when the drama was palmy.
Hats off, gentlemen, and enter
The Walnut Street heater in Phila
delphia is the oldest standing play
house in America. In February, 180 S.
it was erected, and for one hundred
and two years it has flourished. Once
it stood at the outskirts of the town.
then the center; now the town has
grown many, many miles beyond it.
But its proproom -its old proproom;
for it has two now — is the same as
when Pepin and Preschard opened
the theater with a circus and pan
tomime one hundred and two years
What is a proproom? A proproom is a room for
properties. And what are pr .perries.' Anything and
everything, costumes excepted, used on the stage
during a play. A property room looks like the
average" junkshop, possibly more so. A chair is a
property; so is a clock, a cane, a candle, a chain a
corkscrew. And a bottle is a property too. and the
forged will and the mortgage papers, a horseshoe, a
feather duster, and a paper of pins. And the prop
erty man of the theater has all these hundreds of
seemingly inconsequential things under Ins thumb
and gets them when they're needed.
Half a Century in the Proproom
OLD Charlie Iloffner is property man. ■ -! the
Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia. For
over fifty years he lias had charge of the properties
there —the oldest property man in the United States
in the oldest theater in the country. No wonder he
loves the old papier mache helmets and the wooden
simitars touched with silver paint that clutter up the
old proproom. which long since have outlived their
make believe! Grizzled and gray he is: but it's
worth while having silvered hair when one has
• -olden memories. Forrest and Booth and Charlotte
Cushman have talked with him; so Fate cannot
touch him. . .
The other day he looked at his treasures in the old
proproom. Frank Howe. jr.. manager of the thea
ter was there too. to help Hoffner's rich memory
with a vagrant date or two. Howe is a scholar, a
whilom actor, a writer of short stories and plays, a
musician a man whom Art has touched in many
-.laces. Fitting, indeed, that he should now. in this
latter day. have. charge of the playhouse, which in
its over 'a century of life has numbered among
its managers such people as .Mrs. I). P. Bowers.
Edwin Booth, Charlotte Cushman, and John Sleeper
Clarke. . ,
Hoffner brushed a halt-inch of dust from some
hickory stall's. ••Them's old props," he said, "that
were used for most anything, mostly for the witches
in Macbeth. The big one here— that one with a fork
in it, like the top of the old slingshot I used to have
as a boy — that big one was use.! by Charlotte Cush
man in Meg Merrilies. She wanted a stick with a
fork at the top so she could rest her elbow there when
she spoke those two big speeches of hers. Ah!"' and
.i long memory laden sigh came welling from him,
she was a great and good woman, was Charlotte
< "ushman ! "
A wand with a silver star on it. a little wand only
two feet long, caught his eye. •"One of the prettiest
little girls I ever saw in my life carried that wand the
first year 1 came here, 1858. 1 know that her first
name was Lola, ami that she died from catching cold
here. Mr-. Bowers was managing the theater then.
and Edwin Forrest acted "Cams Mariu-.' written by
R. Perm Smith. Then came the children's ballet in
which the kid that carried this wand appeared: then
a pantomime called Jealousy in the Kitchen.' We
opened the doors at six-thirty in those days, and rang
up at seven: had to when you had a tragedy, ballet.
and pantomime all in one night. Wisht I could re
member thai kid's last name! " lie said, as he laid the
little star capped silver wand on a chair.
A Historic Chair
THAT chair's got a history." lie -aid ruminatively.
•" You see it's Gothic, and has four blocks of
wood under it. one on each leg. When Forrest
played Hamlet with the stock company here, he sat
on that chair at rehearsal. Then he gave me bally
hoo; said the chair was -<« short and dumpy that
his chin almost hit his knee-. So I had the stage
carpenter put blocks under it to raise it from the
floor.
When Booth came along I had the chair down
for rehearsal, and he made me take
it ■way.
"'Too high.' says 1.
•'Wo 'says he; 'it isn't right. Ham
let never sat in a Gothic chair like
that He sat in a scoop chair, one
with no back and shaped like the let
ter U. Get a scoop chair.'
"[ didn't have one: but I had it
made by nightfall, and Booth sat m
a scoop chair in the soliloquy scene.
I think the chair's back in that cor
ner " and he peered behind cobwebs
and dust and scratched his head re
flectively: "but 111 not sure,, he
added dubiously.
The Pantomimic Ravels
A BIG head, three feet across from
•*»• ear to ear, leered down from the
rafters. The cotton batting with
which it had been stuffed came
through in little tufts here and there,
like huge snowflakes on a Santa
Clans face. But the face was not
that of kindly Father Christmas. It
was that of a malignant giant, re
minding one of those horrible wooden
grotesqueries that guard the entrance
to a Chinese temple/: ;
Homier nodded to the head. " That's been here a
long, long time. It belonged to the Ravel family
Loads of their stuff litter up the place; they left it
here. The Ravels were great pantomime folks —
French; three. I think, in the family. ; They had a
spectacle called 'The Green Monster.' and they
made one change of scene from a dingy graveyard to
a beautiful ballroom that was one of the best things i
ever saw. Why. it must have been in the ';*) s, when
back of the stage didn't boast any of the modern
helps for quick shifting: yet the way the Ravels
handled those two scenes couldn't be beaten in
swiftness by any of the big companies to-day, with
all their modern methods of making quick changes.
Yes I remember that head well," he added, grin
ning up at the old mask which grinned down to him.
Impatient Then as Now
ADIXGY torn playbill hung on the edge of a
frayed broken bricked chair. The varnish from
the chair had acted as glue and pasted the remnant
of the playbill there. Hoffner tore the four-inch
fragment from its resting place of almost forty years:
for the bill was dated Wednesday evening. Septem
ber 7 1870. He read it slowly, then passed it over.
Edwin Forrest was playing Othello that night:
William Harris was the lago; Lewis Morrison, later
of "Faust"' fame, was the Cassia There wasn't
enough left of the program to tell who played Des
demona; but at the top was a little note which proved
that, though the world does certainly move in some
directions toward betterment, vet in 1910 the aver
Chark-4 Hoffner. the
OIJ Property Man
The Iftimiif Walnut Street Theater. Philadelphia
age theatergoer hasn'l advances] >ii<- little bil from a
certain custom in vogue i?t IS7O.
Hark to the note printed .-it the top . >t the program
the nighi thai Forresi played l>theDo!
Visitors are requested tv remain seated til! the close <>i
tin.- play, as the noise occasioned by the impatient lew
ma»s the pleasure ol tlit- more intellectual portion of the
audience thai wish t>> witness the completion ol the
performance.
The phrase "' impatient few* 1 is mighty good, .mil
note the distinction diawu between them and the
■more intellectual portion ol the audience**!
You see. one wrote himself down as a cad if he
didn't wait till the show was over.
Hoffner took back the torn playbill, looked at
Forrest's name, and -miled. smiled m the nay
thai persons d»> when :i thottghi of the loot; a*«o
X —
comes stealing into the brain of to-day an.! tdls th*
eyes solhev light a bit and the mouth so the corners
droop into a smile that is nearly all wisttulness.
Memories, after all. are only old thought? in new sup,
r °" T }lo'w well 1 remember Forrest!" he said. 'Wha;
a man he was, hi. heart as big a* Ins voice, yet stem
,nd a very fiend for discipline! In those early days
there was a rehearsal every day at ten o'clock, u m f rf
anyone came in at one minute after ten -..,.
would carry on as if everyone of the ten command
ments was' broken. And, apart from his ideas „.
punctuality, he was particular about rehearsafe; no
mumbling" ol the lines, no perfunctory gestures.
Everything must ■■>■ done it rehearsal lust .- it Was
to be* done at the performance that night
"My! don't I remember the dressing down he
gave me one morning!
" "He was rehearsing old Dr. Bird s play ot 'The
Gladiator ' and I had a new set of chains made .. - r
handcuffs' which Forrest snapper! on as he wen: on
stage I went on stage right back of him— and he
topi ed short in the middle of a speech. He looked
at me in a way that made my knees knock together.
and then fairly yelled at me. 'flow dare you corr*
on this stage during a rehearsal .' How dare yon p ut
your foot on it.''
"I swear that be terrified me so 1 couldn't op ra
mv mouth; or rather I couldn't close it. for mr
mouth was so wide open ' must have looked v,
him as if I was going to die of fright the next
second. f
•■ He took one step toward me and shook me by th c
shoulders. 'Did you hear me ' he thundered.
"Then I got my breath. 'These are new hand
cuffs,' I stammered, 'and I want to show the fro
soldiers here how to take them off of you. If I didn't
show them, you'd be walking around all day and all
to-night with the chains on you. That's why I came
on stage.' . S^B
•"Well, show them, and get ml the wings
quick!' he -aid. 'Show me too.' he added, incase
they forget to-night. Then off stage with yot:—
and' be quick about it too!'
"Great heavens! what a voice he had. It was ter
rible more like the rolling of thunder than anything
I can think of. But be could be tender .too. conld
Forrest and th^n his voice was like a flute. I'll
never forget to my last day Forrest's acting in the
closet scene of 'Hamlet.' Remember it? It's the
scene with the Queen mother ' Look on thi- picture
and on that* — speech. Well, I've seen : the great
actors play 'Hamlet,' I've .seen it played three or
four hundred times: but over and over ag.iin I've
quit what 1 was doing behind the scenes and -to<>d
in the wings to hear Forrest in the closet >cene. It
was the most wonderful, most beautiful, rinot acting.
I ever saw or. ever expect to see. To hear Forrest
speak the lines in the closet scene you'd never think
be had a voice thai could .-hake a theate r. Hi> voice
was oft and tender as a woman's: and I -aw mure
than one actress, who was playing the Ortrcri. break
down in that scene and cry real tear-. They just
couldn't help it.".
The Cradle of Geniu> ggj
IIX >VT ink Hoffnef knows that Forrest tßadnras
* first professional •■■•■ nee in this theater." »ai<l
Manager Howe; "for the date was considerably £»■-
.-.. Hoffner's time. Bo! from the record- in sxv
. .triee — and. by the way. they're
locked in the" desk that Char
lotte i ■: . man own and u.-<cl
when she managed the Walnut
in IS l:i— from the records there
Forrest made hi> firr-t appear
ance on any sta^e at the Wa!
• ■■• on the night of November
_. ISUO. He appeal a> Young
.\"..rval in '.>...
•' Edmund Kean made his
■■'■•■ appearance at
the Walnut on December i of
the same year. In tact, the
Walnut has been the cr.uile oi
many an actor's creeping 'jenias
and the birthplace of many
dramas that became famous.
Verdi's music was first heanJin
America at the Wainu: : J« >seph
'■■■••■ hi> first Phila
delphia appearance a- Rip Van
Winkle here: Mary Anderson's
Philadelphia debut was .it the
Walnut. And theoldtime actors
and actresses wh<». by reason <•£
the things they*\ c tr»nche»l :ind
used, which now fin up this
old proprooin tv ■•■■•:•: well, in ad
dition to those to whom Hoffner ha^ paid tribute. I
can mention Macready. McCullough. Edwin Adams.
James Hackett (father of the present star. E. L.
I'avenport.1 'avenport. Lawrence Barrett. Modjeska. Rhea, Ade
laide Xeilson. Fanny Davenport. John T. Raymond.
W.J. Florence, J. K. Emmett. John S.Clarke. Mavjjpe
Mitchell. Annie Pixley. Lotta — well, almost every
actor and actress of prominence in the I.t~* one hun
dred years. In little things, perhaps, they have left
their impress on this «>ld dusty room.*!
*
When Perry Couldn't Appear
IJOFFXER'S eyes were roving. " See that >pinnin^
11 wheel?" he asked. "" We used that in " Faust."
[. B. Roberts played Mephisto. and I think it -.i- I'